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Artificial intelligence and education, Vol. 1
194
Book
Reviews
This anthology is primarily aimed at those who are concerned with the use of computers in education on the international scene. However, the anthology by its very nature provides something for everybody, giving a valuable touch of the international perspective. Other people who may find the anthology of some interest include educational administrators, commercial and government managers, teachers, lecturers, and students concerned with educational technology. Many readers will find the administrative detail daunting; I would suggest that such detail be given a cursory glance. The use of the word “Informatics” in the title is unfortunate because the word has become somewhat dated, but this is not reflected in the contents of the book. In my opinion a better title would have been “Computers in Education and Training: An International Perspective”. For the price the anthology is retailing at I think that with my title it would have a much greater chance of selling! Overall, the anthology is a respectable collection of papers which is unable to do justice to the 25 years of work by the Technical Committee for Education of the International Federation for Information Processing. Institute of Educational Technology The Open University Milton Keynes MK7 6AA England
SIMONBENTO
Artificial Intelligence and Education, Vol. 1: Edited by ROBERTW. LAWLERand MASOUDYAZDANI. Ablex, Norwood, N.J. (1987). 440 pp. f 16.95 (paperback). Artificial Intelligence and Education, Vol. I is a collection of papers, apparently
originating from the 1985 conference of the same name, which is promoted as marking the beginning of the “coming together” of the two research streams of Intelligent Tutoring Systems and learning environments. The former is a development arising from the application of artificial intelligence techniques within the Computer-Aided Instruction (CAI) tradition; the latter is typified by work such as Papert’s LOGO environment (which was originally developed under the premise that given an appropriate environment, students will discover things for themselves, and hence learn). Despite the suggestion that these separate strands are coming together, the collection of papers is neatly split down the middle, with separate introductory chapters to the two sections, one by each of the editors. The first nine papers come under the general heading of “learning environments”, or “microworlds”. The subject domains covered include geometry, reading, programming and even designing. Most of the authors in this section are filled with an enthusiasm and prophetic zeal which is liable to have one of two effects on the reader; one is likely either to be infected by the enthusiasm and want to follow up some of the ideas, or to feel very cynical about the claims being made about the efficacy of learning environments and to be inclined to dismiss the whole concept. The second section (again consisting of nine chapters) is rather more low-key, with no extravagant claims being made about the power of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) to solve all the problems of education. In a detailed and thorough paper, Ohlsson addresses the problem of a lack of general principles in the development of ITSs by proposing some principles; while this is a contribution towards formalizing a field which needs such a treatment, the view of tutoring which underlies his paper seems somewhat out-dated (being grounded in the CA1 roots from which ITS research developed, but which it is now gradually shedding as the limitations of such a view become more apparent). Within this section there is a glimmer of the “coming together” anticipated in the preface to this volume, as two of the papers give accounts of projects which combine a computer tutor with a component which can be regarded as a learning environment. The remaining papers serve to give a genera1 flavour of the problems and possibilities of the application of ITS research to education. Inevitably, a collection of research papers is going to date quite fast as the subject area develops. The papers in this collection do serve to provide a broad flavour of the ways in which AI techniques can be applied to education, and several of the papers are significant in their own right. As a
Book Reviews
195
volume, this book serves to mark a stage in the development in the subject. However, as it is simply a collection of independent papers, with few links between them and no reference to the broader context within which the work was done, it is not a book to read from cover to cover, and is unlikely to appeal to readers without a strong interest in the area. Institute of Educational Technology The Open University Milton Keynes MK7 6AA England
A.E. BLANDFORD
Book
Reviews
This anthology is primarily aimed at those who are concerned with the use of computers in education on the international scene. However, the anthology by its very nature provides something for everybody, giving a valuable touch of the international perspective. Other people who may find the anthology of some interest include educational administrators, commercial and government managers, teachers, lecturers, and students concerned with educational technology. Many readers will find the administrative detail daunting; I would suggest that such detail be given a cursory glance. The use of the word “Informatics” in the title is unfortunate because the word has become somewhat dated, but this is not reflected in the contents of the book. In my opinion a better title would have been “Computers in Education and Training: An International Perspective”. For the price the anthology is retailing at I think that with my title it would have a much greater chance of selling! Overall, the anthology is a respectable collection of papers which is unable to do justice to the 25 years of work by the Technical Committee for Education of the International Federation for Information Processing. Institute of Educational Technology The Open University Milton Keynes MK7 6AA England
SIMONBENTO
Artificial Intelligence and Education, Vol. 1: Edited by ROBERTW. LAWLERand MASOUDYAZDANI. Ablex, Norwood, N.J. (1987). 440 pp. f 16.95 (paperback). Artificial Intelligence and Education, Vol. I is a collection of papers, apparently
originating from the 1985 conference of the same name, which is promoted as marking the beginning of the “coming together” of the two research streams of Intelligent Tutoring Systems and learning environments. The former is a development arising from the application of artificial intelligence techniques within the Computer-Aided Instruction (CAI) tradition; the latter is typified by work such as Papert’s LOGO environment (which was originally developed under the premise that given an appropriate environment, students will discover things for themselves, and hence learn). Despite the suggestion that these separate strands are coming together, the collection of papers is neatly split down the middle, with separate introductory chapters to the two sections, one by each of the editors. The first nine papers come under the general heading of “learning environments”, or “microworlds”. The subject domains covered include geometry, reading, programming and even designing. Most of the authors in this section are filled with an enthusiasm and prophetic zeal which is liable to have one of two effects on the reader; one is likely either to be infected by the enthusiasm and want to follow up some of the ideas, or to feel very cynical about the claims being made about the efficacy of learning environments and to be inclined to dismiss the whole concept. The second section (again consisting of nine chapters) is rather more low-key, with no extravagant claims being made about the power of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) to solve all the problems of education. In a detailed and thorough paper, Ohlsson addresses the problem of a lack of general principles in the development of ITSs by proposing some principles; while this is a contribution towards formalizing a field which needs such a treatment, the view of tutoring which underlies his paper seems somewhat out-dated (being grounded in the CA1 roots from which ITS research developed, but which it is now gradually shedding as the limitations of such a view become more apparent). Within this section there is a glimmer of the “coming together” anticipated in the preface to this volume, as two of the papers give accounts of projects which combine a computer tutor with a component which can be regarded as a learning environment. The remaining papers serve to give a genera1 flavour of the problems and possibilities of the application of ITS research to education. Inevitably, a collection of research papers is going to date quite fast as the subject area develops. The papers in this collection do serve to provide a broad flavour of the ways in which AI techniques can be applied to education, and several of the papers are significant in their own right. As a
Book Reviews
195
volume, this book serves to mark a stage in the development in the subject. However, as it is simply a collection of independent papers, with few links between them and no reference to the broader context within which the work was done, it is not a book to read from cover to cover, and is unlikely to appeal to readers without a strong interest in the area. Institute of Educational Technology The Open University Milton Keynes MK7 6AA England
A.E. BLANDFORD